The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-09-03
Complied for The ArkGnsGC TraUeEer.
 SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

4 hailstone with nucleus of gyp- sum, probably sucked up in a water spout, fell in recent shower in France.
 Grand Duke Nicholas, of Russia, is credited with being an enthusiastic student of natural history, and with a new work on the entomology of the Caucasus.
 The importance of soft water for domestic purposes is illustrated by the experience of large London asv- lum, ill which change from hard to soft water has resulted in an estimated annual saving in soda, soap, labor, etc. of more than S4 ,000.
 The veteran Russian anatomist. Wenzel Gruber, who recently cele- brated the fortieth anniversary of his appointment in the medical school at St. Petersburg, has superintended the dissection of 30,000 bodies and has written 540 memoirs and pamphlets on anatomical subjects.
 During five school years the director of the Royal Deaf Mute Institution at Copenhagen has made semi -diurnal measurements of the height and weight of the children under his care, and he deduced number of coincidences between variations in their weight and those in the temperature of the air.
 The remains of no less than 54 spe- cies of Towering plants from mummy wrappings in Egypt have been iden- tified. The flowers have been won derfully preserved, even the delicate violet color of the larkspur and the scarlet of the poppy, the chlorophvl ln the leaves, and the sugar in the raisins, remaining.
 Of the cephalopods, comprising the cuttle- fish, the octopus or devil-fish. and their allies, thirty-two species new to science were discovered bv the Challenger expedition, according to a report just finished. Some of the cephalopods have length of sixty feet, and they appear formidable as well as singular creatures.
 Another of the new diseases which follow in the wake of civilization has been reported from Berlin, where two telegraph operators have been affected. The finger nails have fallen out, one alter another, though the persons have been otherwise in good health. The curious affection is ascribed to the con- stant Jar and pressure on the fingers produced by working the Morse key.
 POWER OF A WiNDMILL.-One of the largest wind motors in existence IS used for driving Touring machinery at Great Yarmouth, England, It has tour sails, which are 40 feet 9 inches long by F feet 6 inches wide, and ex- tend 100 feet from point to point. With wind of D miles an hour, the windmill has 55 horse power, and will easily make 120 barrels of flour in 24 hours. The building containing the fouring apparatus and supporting the motor is of II stories, stands 99 feet above foundation, and is B feet Ill diameter at the base, and 16 at the top.
 TEMPERATURE PERcEPT1oN.-It is we'll understood that cold sensation reaches consciousness more rapidly than one of warmth. The exact time required to perceive each has lately been measured by Dr. Goldscheider. of Berlin. Contact with a cold point was felt on the face after 13.5, on the arm after IS, on the abdomen after p. and on the knee after p hundredths ot second. From hot point the sensation was felt on the same surfaces after l9, P, 62 and 79 hundredths of a second respectively. This great time difference has an important bearing on the theory of skin sensations.
 A GREAT DEBT TO SC1ENcE.-T.. e inn mense practical value of meteorologv has been strikingly shown at Calcutta. The director of the Bengal Meteorol- ogical Department became aware of the existence of terrible storm in the middle of the Bay of Bengal five or six days before it reached the land, and gave timely danger signals to keep vessels from leaving the river at Cal cutta. One steamer failed to heed the warning, and foundered, with a loss of about 900 lives. Among the six or seven vessels kept safely in port were two steamers bound over the same course as the lost vessel, and with about an equal number of passengers, whose escape from death was unboubt- edly due to the wisdom of the wealth